"Novel low band gap (LBG) conjugated polymers and state-of-the-art electron donor polymeric materials used in high performance organic photovoltaics (OPVs) will be developed with the aim to replace existing hazardous ones for cleaner and environmentally friendly laboratory and industrial processes. Direct Arylation (DAr) represents an economically attractive and ecologically benign alternative to the traditional cross-coupling methodologies (Suzuki and Stille; Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2010). Despite the great versatility and choices in Suzuki and Stille cross-couplings, these reactions have drawbacks such as numerous steps to monomer synthesis, instability of the organometallic reagents, and formation of stoichiometric amounts of toxic by-products, preventing their easy scale-up manufacturing. Easy large scale production of organic semiconductors by eco-friendly procedure (DAr) and their applications platforms entails robust, non-cleanroom, low-cost infrastructure along with affordable, environmentally benign materials, ideal for globally competitive production by local SMEs and large enterprises. Finally, advanced spectroscopic characterization and photovoltaic evaluation will be performed on the new polymers and blends thereof with fullerene derivatives in order to identify the elementary mechanisms that govern the fundamental physicochemical processes. As a proof of concept, solar cell fabrication and optimization will be performed on the most promising systems with the goal to achieve world class power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) above 9.0%."